Happy Halloween!

We had a wonderful Halloween evening - pizza party with friends and lots of trick-or-treating.  I'm a little biased of course, but I think I have the cutest dinosaur and dragon there ever was!  :)

Cinderella Katelyn, Connor the lion, Rylan the dinosaur, Mackenzie the dragon, and Ella the ladybug.

The wagon crew - adorable as ever!

Next house!

Our last stop is always Grandma Mac's.  What a fun night!

Weekend Away

And it was GLORIOUS!  I headed east to spend the weekend with my mom and sister - shopping and attending a Women of Faith conference.  Nick and the kids headed west to the Ranch for some "treasure"(rock) hunting and pheasant hunting.  Everyone had a great time, but I definitely had the better end of the deal!  :)  It was so much fun to have some girl time, some uninterrupted shopping time, and hear so many great speakers at the conference.  The weather was beautiful and I felt totally rejuvenated (physically and spiritually) when I got home.

The only pictures that were taken of the whole weekend were of the kids right before they left.  Last time Nick went out to the Ranch, Ace's kennel got left there so this time Ace had to ride in the cab.  He was supposed to ride on the floor, but jumped up on the seat hoping no one would notice.  (see how he was avoiding looking at me?)  The kids thought it was HILARIOUS that Ace was in the cab and I'm sure were trying to get him to jump back with them the whole trip!

Grandma's 80th Birthday

Nick's Grandma turned 80 a couple weeks ago and we had a grand celebration for a beautiful and wonderful lady!

There were many people at the party and the highlight was the program.  Katie first came out dressed as Grandma and acted as the MC.  Many people couldn't figure out who it was!

Merrilee and Laurie dug out a bunch of Grandma's old dresses and there was a fashion show.

 Even her beautiful wedding dress made an appearance!

Jarrod and I sang "The Prayer" - so fun to sing with him!

But it was Rylan who stole the show - he and Jarrod sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow and You Are My Sunshine.  He did so great and loved being in front of everyone with a microphone - so proud of him!

Our little family!  As you can see, Kenzie's twins made it to the party too! :)

6 of 8 grandchildren were there with spouses and all 7(soon to be 8) of Grandma's great grandchildren were there.

Will the real Grandma please stand up.

It was fun to hang out afterward with cousins and kiddos - we all had a blast!

Cousins with the great grandchildren

Then spouses added in - LOVE this group - I'm so lucky to have joined such an awesome family!

The outside photo went so well I suggested we try to get all the great grandchildren with Grandma.  They thought I was crazy, but with all the kids there, we had to try, not sure when the next time will be that this happens again.  Needless to say, it didn't go well.  Someone should have been videotaping because it was chaos. This picture was taken after one screaming child had already been taken out.  One screaming child remained and 2 others were trying to escape.  At one point Rylan and Grandma both had their fingers in their ears.  Hey, at least we tried right?!

The only 2 happy campers!

We love you so much Grandma!  Happy Birthday!

Sunday Afternoon Walk

One Sunday afternoon we headed out to some of Nick's hunting land for a walk to see if we could find any pheasants.  We didn't see any and I was disappointed for Ace.  He loves pheasant hunting so much, it's so fun to watch him work the land to find them.  Obviously he is sniffing the whole time, but he's also constantly looking back at Nick for instructions, it's so cute.  We all had a great time enjoying a beautiful fall day.

Taking a break

Rylan wanted to take a picture of Nick and I, so I quickly showed him how to use the big SLR camera and he did really well!

Of course then Mackenzie wanted a turn - here's her rapid fire shots.  Haha!

Made it back - ready to go home!

So Proud!

About a year ago, I posted about Mackenzie's journey with glasses and her speech delay.  Here are the links if you want to go back and re-read them.
http://nickandlanae.blogspot.com/2011/09/kenzie-girl-part-1.html

http://nickandlanae.blogspot.com/2011/09/kenzie-girl-part-2.html

I just read them again and now I'm crying all over again - tears of sadness remembering all the emotions I felt at the time, and tears of joy at the progress she has made and just how much I love her!

I figured it was time for an update since she is doing so well!  She's in her second year of the Preschool Special Needs program and we just found out at Parent-Teacher conferences that this will be her last year there.  They already know that she won't qualify next year because she's doing so well!  We were totally surprised by this news and so excited!  It's a little bittersweet because we love her teachers so much, but obviously this is what we hoped for.

She could go to Kindergarten next year because she'll be 5 in June 2013, but we're going to wait another year.  I never wanted a summer baby because I didn't want to make that decision, but God knew what He was doing when He gave Mackenzie to us and I'm so glad we have that choice now.  Her teachers have said that they are having to pull things from a Kindergarten curriculum for Mackenzie as all the preschool stuff is too easy - Praise God!  We have always been pretty sure that she doesn't have any cognitive delays, but it's so nice to hear that from her teachers.  They couldn't say enough positive things about her at her conference and we are SO proud!

Mackenzie is still behind in her speech, but she keeps making progress and really just needs practice.  Her teachers noted that while her speech is a little behind, she has no problems communicating, she gets everything across one way or another.

So next year, she'll go to a regular preschool and then she will receive speech therapy through the school district.  We're so excited for this news and so excited for a our little girl!

And even though she's had some struggles along the way, I now know why God made her so full of spunk and attitude - she's not going to let anything stop her!  Somethings those attributes make me crazy, but she is so determined and persistent I know she'll be able to overcome anything!  Her "spark" makes me cry somedays, but it always makes me laugh too - she truly is one of a kind and we love her so much!

Safety First!

Mackenzie insisted on wearing her "space helmet" to watch cartoons on the iPad this morning.

Yesterday, it wasn't a space helmet though, it was a motorcycle helmet because she was riding on a motorcycle.  Doesn't matter what it is to me, I just know that her imagination is awesome!  Love her so much!

Harvest

 Just a few pictures from harvest this year.  We had a wonderful crop here, but out west it wasn't so hot.  Thankfully the snow only slowed the guys down a little and they were able to get it all done quite quickly.  I gladly brought many meals out to them, but was relieved to hear the final "we're done, let's go out to a restaurant to celebrate!"

Something New

I don't have much new to share but I need to get those icky snow pictures off the top of the blog!  I have been sorting through and organizing school papers from last year and I came up with an alternative solution to keeping everything.  I kept some special projects and writing samples, but I don't have room to keep every art project.  So I took pictures of everything and made a Shutterfly photo book that we can keep on a bookshelf to look at whenever we want to remember the work they did with little hands. 

Here are just a few of each of their projects.  Rylan's first:

Mackenzie's artwork: